"You want to know more about Spesavia?" Aureum said.
"Yes. Please." Mendax replied. "Anything you can tell me."
They were sitting in Aureum's room. Aureum on the bed, with Mendax taking the chair by the still-open window. Despite his begging, he was at a distance as he looked out.
"Let's see…"
Aureum turned her memories back. Their first meeting was a long time ago. However, she'd told the story a lot when she was younger, so it was fresher than she expected.
"I met her when she was visiting my parents for rare herbs. Everybody else was terrified…"
It had been a bright and warm day for Nix, but her parents' expressions had clashed with the weather terribly. Calces, whom Aureum had never seen but as her dignified and talkative father, was cowed down to the bend in his back. Her mother, Simila, might have seemed normal if Aureum hadn't seen her hands clenched into fists before the sorceress arrived. Felixia was in her room, as Aureum should have been.
Instead, Aureum was hiding under one of the chairs, watching her parents get berated by an old crone that looked more like a vagrant than any sorceress. Folds of wrinkled skin, white hair, and a slightly hunched back was finished with a dress worn to a bluish gray.
"I traveled all this way just to waste my time on a few crumbled writings, and the best in this stupid city can't even provide the basic herbs I need?! What is this incompetence?!"
"My apologies, madam sorcereress!" Calces groveled. "We would love to meet your expectations, but the crop of the herb you want fell to a notorious disease decades ago! There simply isn't as much as there used to be."
"Pft. You merchants and your lies! How can a wild herb gathered on the mountains fall because of some crop disease?! Go out and get it, you fools!"
"My dad's not a liar," Aureum murmured.
She didn't know much, but she did know that her father dealt with crops of things. He wasn't some peddler who went to the mountains every day and picked herbs, and it was far less efficient for him to send someone else to do it if he could buy land and grow them.
Her words were hardly a whisper, really. The old crone had very good ears.
"And you can't even keep your children under control," she said, shaking her head.
She stood up, in the slow manner of the old, and plodded her way over to where Aureum was hidden. The Zizan couple held their breath as they followed her.
"Get out, brat."
Aureum didn't move.
"Don't make me pull you out."
"Children can be shy. She doesn't understand politeness you're owed," Simila said.
Aureum crawled out at hearing her mother plead. She kept her head lowered.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"What child? She's already formed her pearl and should know some common sense. She's just a brat. She badmouths me from behind my back only to say sorry before I punish her."
Aureum gripped her hands tighter.
"How are you any better? You badmouth Dad to his face!"
Aureum knew it was wrong to say. Simila covered her mouth as Calces held his breath. Spesavia just waited.
Young Aureum, again, lowered her head.
I'm right.
But the oppression she felt from this old woman kept even Aureum from speaking up again. She trembled.
"Really, how you must have spoiled her," Spesavia finally said, "It's been a long time since anyone dared. For the novel experience, I'll let you deal with the twerp."
"Thank you! We'll give you a discount to cover my family's rudeness. Simila—
"Yes," Aureum's mother said as she grabbed Aureum's hands. "Come with me, Aureum."
Aureum was pulled away from the catastrophe. As the door to Aureum's room shut, Simila kneeled and wrapped Aureum in an embrace.
"Oh, Aureum," she said. "I need you to be smarter than that."
Aureum didn't get much chance to reply as she was held tight.
"That doesn't sound like a fortunate meeting," Mendax said.
Aureum was broken from her revere. She'd told it differently from usual. Usually, it sounded like she was a brave child, and Spesavia's pleasure with that was obvious from the beginning.
After so many years of letting the story rest, her story came out different. Maybe she understood what she remembered differently.
"Yeah. That's not the end. As punishment, Spesavia had me attend to her as she tried out the ancient medicinal recipes she discovered. I also got to pick herbs from her. Our friendship, or what our relationship is, grew from that time."
"Still, seems odd."
"When I was younger, I thought I must have been secretly talented. But looking back, I guess she was just lonely. Nobody's really managed to tame my tongue. My honesty may really have been refreshing."
"You're a person without hidden intentions," Mendax said, an amused lilt to his voice.
"Haha. Anyways, before she left, she promised to train me, and years later she came back and fulfilled much of her promise."
"And then what?"
"I caught the eye of someone, and his family didn't want me to continue learning if we were going to get married."
Mendax didn't say anything. Aureum had expected him to give the same incredulous answers that most would. The Cyclops' position on her foregoing her studies had been a strong warning sign.
"There's not much else to it," she said. "It's both a strong relationship and kind of weak."
"Did you not get that close?"
"We were close, but I just—I think being so close means she might be more frustrated than if she really was interested in a genius talent. I can't figure out why else she wouldn't reply."
Mendax made a noncommittal noise. He had no clue about that.
"So what about you?" Aureum said.
"What?"
"What about your teacher?"
Aureum had had enough of this passively ignoring Mendax nonsense. Passing a trick question wasn't enough. If she was going to really start trusting him, she needed to dispel some of the mysteries around him.
"I didn't have a mentor like you or Lacuna," Mendax said. "A lot of people taught me."
"Well, most people aren't lucky enough to get taught by an ascended, but everybody is taught the basics by somebody. Usually it's a family member."
The final sentence was directed.
"My mother taught me… a little," Mendax said.
Though she wasn't allowed to teach me much.
Mendax remembered his father throwing something at his mother. Behind her, he hadn't seen clearly what it was. His mother hadn't flinched. It had fallen with a loud clatter.
She'd been like a wall of confident fury in front of him.
"No son of the Nix line will have a pearl other than ice!" Lord Nix had screamed.
"Why did you marry me if my element sullies your perfect little bloodline then? You won't even put him in the family registry yet! What does it matter what kind of pearl he forms?"
"Once his face is fixed, he'll make a worthy heir."
Not much else remained of the memory. A tight, small fist holding to his mother's dress. The faint smell of smoke. Maybe he added that later.
The sharp words remained clear, even after all these years.
After Nivis was born, Caducus had cared less.
But by that point, Mendax had already formed a pearl of ice. At age five, the children of lords and ladies started learning earlier. Nix probably earlier than was appropriate.
"What's your mother like?" Aureum said, cutting through his revere.
"She was. Nice."
"Was?" Aureum said.
The glow of that burning garden came back to him. He would never forget it. Not even the scorched ground had, a decade and a half later, and the garden of Nix was still burned.
"Fierce is a better word. She died when I was young."
"Do you want to talk about her?" Aureum said.
"Not really."
"At least you still have your dad, right?"
"I don't have a father," Mendax said.
"Ah. Haha! Ahhh. I'm really sorry. Just ignore me."
"It's alright. I do have a brother, but… he's a bother."
"Ah, alright."
Aureum kept herself from saying anything more on the topic of family. The conclusion was obvious: messy and painful.
"I guess that's why you work as a sellsword then," Aureum said, trying to feed the conversation.
"Oh."
It occurred to Mendax what she was doing. This wasn't idle curiosity. She was probing him for information.
About time, he thought.
"Something like that," he said. "Do you know any specific locations Spesavia could be?"
Aureum spread her hands apart.
"She could be in any ruins looking for lost legacies. Which one is she at right now? I have no clue."
"Is there any place she returns to often?"
"Nix was one. But maybe not now. There have to be other places, but from what I know, Viadelux is it. Tell me more about what you're planning to do to reach her again?"
Mendax shook his head.
"It's not planning. More like digging and prodding. Spesavia is important enough to the university that they should have a more reliable way of contacting her. If she entirely ignored them, she'd lose her access to the university, right? If we use their path of contact, maybe she won't be able to so easily ignore you."
"Maybe?"
"Maybe."
We are in desperate need of a real solution.
"I guess I haven't been very helpful," Aureum said.
He shrugged.
"I didn't expect much. If you had known, why would you still be waiting? You'd be gone."
"You said you wouldn't be murdering that thug, Nola?"
"I don't think I need your help with that anymore. Don't worry about it. But the problem comes after."
"Yes?"
"Nola is like me. She won't be the only one after you."
It was on the tip of his tongue, just how similar they were.
"And?"
"They'll either come with the force of numbers next time, or a stronger foe than Nola."
"…And? You need me to leave."
Aureum had gotten the memo earlier.
"Aren't you gonna ask who might be after me?" She said.
Mendax stilled. He had forgotten to ask that, as he hadn't needed to.
"Any thoughts?" he said.
Aureum shook her head.
"Dunno. I haven't done that much yet. I don't know why anybody would want to kill me? Maybe it's connected to my parents instead."
Mendax opened his mouth and closed it.
"I see."
He didn't see anything. Whether it was truth or a total lie. Whether she trusted him or didn't.
He felt like she didn't trust him. And that was for the best.
"Well, one problem at a time," he said. "I want you to pick the place that's a likely spot for Spesavia if you need to go. You should start thinking of things you'll need as well if you were to go there."
"Well, do you need anything—
"I can take care of anything for me. For now, I have to go. Remember, we'll be going to the library together to see what we can find on Spesavia."
Then he fled. The door clattered shut with a bang.
Aureum waved without bothering to speak.
It was a bit early for him to meet with Nola, but he couldn't be drawn into any further conversations. That's what he told himself.
He was very early to his meeting.
Aureum figured he was busy, as that was the trend. She continued thinking without much bother, tallying up a few things.
Mendax's background seemed sad. Dreary enough to elicit sympathy. It occurred to her he might be lying about it all. Maybe. How was she to know?
It felt like the obvious answer. Being a blade for hire wasn't a job picked up on a whim. Most talents would be picked up by some bloodline and adopted as a bodyguard or otherwise made use of.
A well-kept blade wasn't allowed to wallow.
From what she knew of what he could do, he should be able to get a stable position.
His face might not help.
But it wouldn't stop every opportunity. Guards weren't chosen for their beauty. Either he didn't want one, or something else was going on.
Maybe he was thrown out by a major bloodline?
If that happened, no one would touch him. A strong broken connection would give him either the reputation of a traitor or make other bloodlines worried over him being a mole.
The problem was, he didn't seem that problematic. He wasn't even late for her, and she wasn't his direct employer. She'd never seen him get drunk. His work ethic, as much as his actual job was sketchy, was so far spotless.
Alongside his ability to deal with a minor mob of dangerous men made his sellsword blade an odd life choice.
Aureum shook her head. Again, all she was left with was assumptions. She stood up as she turned her mind to other matters.
Like packing. One hand on her hip, and the other on her head, she heaved a sigh and sagged. It felt like packing was all she did.
If that were true, she wouldn't still need to do it.
Still, she had gotten better over her journeys and she lived out of her bag. In under an hour she was ready to go. She might have to give away a few books, but that was easy enough.
All I really need now is a replacement for my cloak.
It wasn't something she could pick up easily at the market.
Of course, he had to leave before I could think about things I needed him for.
She could have used a bodyguard for shopping right about now.
———————————————————
Much later, Mendax finished telling Nola his plan, the version told to trick her ears.
"You'll have me fight in some little gambling ring and bust her head in then?"
"Yes, in such a setting, nobody would question it," Mendax said. "We wouldn't even have to deal with the evidence."
"Perfect. Is she any good at combat?"
"She has her tricks," Mendax said. "Should I let you discover them for yourself?"
"Of course! Nothing I was told said she was dangerous. Although I do want to see the determination of someone who reformed their pearl and still dares to fight."
Wait, Mendax thought. I'll give you more than you want.